Empoword Community

Breathing Breaks

Just breathe. You hear it all the time. You know it’s good for you, that it will help decrease stress, improve overall health, and can even reduce pain. So why don’t we take more deep, cleansing breaths?

Maybe it is because healthy breathing is starting to feel like one more thing to add to our already overloaded “to-do” lists. It also doesn’t help that we are supposed to practice breathing, or do breathing exercise. Suddenly you start to feel like you are in 4th grade again and have to practice piano or do more math problems before you can go outside and play.

This month take a breathing break – no practicing, no exercising, just doing. Like a coffee break, the breathing break is a quick refresh in the midst of your day. But the breathing break is better. No waiting in line at Starbuck’s, no $4 coffee drink. Breathing breaks are caffeine-free (just plain free actually), easy to do, transportable, and completely green.

Pick a mundane activity you do often during the day and every time you do that activity, take a deep, de-stressing breath. Breathe every time you open the refrigerator. Breathe when you turn on your car. Breathe every time you send an email.

Commercial Message: Need help remembering to take those deep, de-stressing breathes? Try Empoword’s breathe window clings. They are non-adhesive, so won’t leave a mark and they stick to any non-porous surface – mirrors, windows, lockers, refrigerators. A great reminder throughout the day.

Report Back and Win an Empoword Breathe Tee Shirt.

Does the breathing break work? What activity did you pick? Are you breathing more? Are you feeling less stressed? Healthier? What happened? Please share your insights, experiences and stories. Everyone who shares a story this month will be entered in a drawing to win an Empoword breathe tee.

Open for Business is a weekly column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press Sunday business section. The column features a new business less than one year old. Empoword was the featured business August 10th. An excerpt is printed below with a link to the entire article.

Tell us what your business does. Empoword (pronounced empowered) manufactures products to help customers turn possibilities into realities with frequent reminders of their goals. We sell products that have a single word, paired with a carefully designed symbol, on everyday items that get seen a lot — coffee mugs, T-shirts, non-adhesive stickers that go on the bathroom mirror or refrigerator door. Thinking about what the word symbolizes for you mobilizes every cell in your body to work toward your intentions, goals and dreams.

http://www.twincities.com

Published August 10, 2008
Segment reprinted here with the permission of the Pioneer Press.

Empoword: See it, Think it, Believe it

Stephanie Ross ’82 learned about the connection between mind and body when she was a junior at St. Paul Academy and Summit School. She became seriously ill and was taken to a hospital where she endured surgery, IVs and more. Learning visualization techniques helped her control her body’s responses to the illness and medical interventions, and that memory of the mind-body wellness connection stayed with her. Later, as her mother struggled with ovarian cancer and turned to complementary and alternative approaches to treatment, Ross was again reminded of the importance of the mind-body connection.

“My mom had to go from 0-60 in learning about these differing approaches and it was very challenging for her,” Ross explained. “Watching her experience started my own journey to figure out how to help people find manageable ways to incorporate everything — mind, body and spirit — into wellness.”

Ross began graduate school at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and finished her degree in Human Development at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. Her concentration was in how imagery can be used in the healing process. Since then, Ross has become a holistic wellness practitioner with a specialization in the use of imagery in transformational processes. In other words, she encourages people to use imagery to help them heal physically, emotionally and spiritually.

“Throughout my life I have seen example after example of how positive thinking, visualization and believing in our own potential can significantly impact outcomes,” Ross said. “I have also seen all too often how easy it is to give up and let negative thoughts and attitudes take over.”

Ross has long used imagery in her life by assigning meaning to a word and then visualizing a specific outcome every time she thinks of that word. Convinced of the benefits of a visual reminder as a quick and easy helping strategy, she and business partner Wendy Lutter launched “Empoword,” a product-based business that believes focusing on the right mantra can lead to very real changes in one’s life.

The Empoword product line includes words such as focus, gratitude, breathe, imagine, strength, love, bliss, real, awake, balance, brave, giggle and wonder emblazoned with a matching symbol on Tshirts, decals, coffee mugs and more. The words and symbols are intended to remind you of your intentions and to support your efforts, goals and dreams, Ross said, while serving as a point of encouragement along the way.

“Empoword was born from my belief that giving up — on a new exercise program, on staying healthy, sometimes even on yourself — is easy and happens more often than we would like,” she explained. “I wanted to create something that would make sticking to your goals easy, and what is easier and more powerful than a simple, single, well-chosen word?”

More than just a marketing ploy, however, Ross explained their concept is based on very real science.

“There is a branch of science — psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI — that is exploring how the mind, nervous system and immune system interplay and work together,” Ross said. “Simply put, the research shows that our thoughts are affecting our physiology.”

Ross said she gathered a lot of information that supports her business’s objectives from two books: Candace Pert’s Molecules of Emotion, and Herb Benson’s The Relaxation Response. Pert discusses how thoughts and emotions impact the cells in our bodies, and Benson’s book reveals how meditation and the use of mantra are efficacious forms of treatment for hypertension and other disease.

“The challenge we are presenting is to give the locus of control back to the individual,” said Ross. “Empoword is built on the premise that setting intentions, staying positive and mindful, leads to greater happiness, wellness and fulfilled dreams. Our products are accessible tools to support personal growth, transformation and overall mind-body wellness.

“New Age guilt is not what we’re about,” she added. “Sometimes life is overwhelming. This is about doing what you can to control outcomes. We don’t need science to know that our attitude can make a big difference in any endeavor.”

Ross reminds that unconscious thoughts can also influence you, and that those thoughts can impact your life as well. Empoword places subtle reminders on everyday items to encourage you when you need it the most.

“It’s not about having total control,” she explained. “It’s about taking control where you can. Positive affirmation is something everyone can benefit from, and Empoword serves as a little extra support and inspiration.

“What we’re really selling is a concept,” she continued. “The key ingredient in all Empoword products is the user. They are the ones who give the word significance and meaning. Our graphics are designed to remind you of your intentions, support your affirmations and encourage you along the way.”

To learn more about Empoword, go to www.thinkempoword.com. Empoword products may also be found locally at Bibelot Shops, Bachman’s, The Marsh, SaraCura and The SweatShop, to name a few. To learn more about Ross’s private practice, go to www.intuitivehealthmanagement.com.

Published Summer 2008
Reprinted here with the permission of St. Paul Academy and Summit School

So if laughter really is the best medicine, let’s all get giggling. No co-pay necessary. Available in unlimited quantities and happily contagious. Share a story about how humor has been healing. What about a joke or funny story. Recount a side-splitting moment. We would love to hear it all. Make us laugh. Let’s get the gigglefest going!

I never expected it to go this far. I never expected to launch an international crusade for our kids or for the New York Times to call me “food’s Erin Brockovich” or to appear on Good Morning America. And I certainly never expected my life to change abruptly and irrevocably over a plate of scrambled eggs. But that is exactly what happened one morning two years ago when I was serving my four kids breakfast.

It was an extraordinary morning in the sense that it was absolutely ordinary. You know the ones? Where the kids come screaming down the stairs and you’re not sure if the chaos is in the form of a game of chase, a favorite T-shirt that can’t be found or those mornings of glee when the kids are just happy to be up, having finally got a good night’s sleep. No matter. It was one of those mornings.

So, as I powered down a few cups of joe, I set to serving up breakfast to my four children, which that morning consisted of some Eggo waffles, tubes of blue yogurt and some scrambled eggs.

As I did each morning, I pretty much drove a groove into the floor with the constant trips back and forth across the kitchen, serving up food.

As I passed by my baby’s highchair, I decided to slip a few spoonfuls of scrambled eggs onto her tray. My older three loved scrambled eggs, so I figured my littlest one would, too. But she didn’t really seem interested and fussed and pushed them away.

As I cleaned up the mess, still unsure how the blue yogurt had found its way to the ceiling, I noticed that my baby seemed tired. And since she was only 9 months old at the time, I took her upstairs to put her down for her morning nap.

I don’t know what made me check on her that morning. She was my fourth child, I knew to let sleeping babies lie. But a few minutes later, in an act that can only be defined as Mama Instinct, I went upstairs to check on her.

I lost my breath the minute I walked into her bedroom. Her face was swollen shut. As I grabbed her from her crib, I was stunned at the thing that I held in my arms. And I went screaming downstairs, calling out to the older children, asking if they had put something in her face, in her crib, in her eyes.

All I got were those blank little kid stares. You know the ones? That let you see straight down into your children’s soul? The ones so full of innocence and honesty that you have no doubt. And at that point, I got really scared, because my older children had no idea what I was talking about.

I turned back to my baby, whose face was swollen, red and angry and whose eyes had been reduced to slits in her face. My God. What had happened to her?

I called the pediatrician in a complete panic, and she told me to come in immediately that it sounded like an allergic reaction. What the hell? None of my older kids had ever done this. It was eggs. And hadn’t I rolled my eyes at the mothers who spoke of their children’s allergies? What was happening?

I felt completely out of control, unable to protect my baby from something as normal as food. What kind of mother was I?

Little did I know what that day and that diagnosis would bring.

I began to learn about food allergies, what causes them, and how they are indicators for other childhood conditions. But no one told me how to protect my child, to prevent any of this. If a condition had been specifically designed to drive a mother crazy, this was it. How could something as intimate as food pose such a threat? Little did I know, that on that day, the world that I had always known began to slip away. As I continued to learn about this “American epidemic”, I learned about the proteins in foods that threaten a child’s immune system. As I tried to create awareness of my child’s condition, in my attempt to protect her health, I learned something else. I learned how to start a company, file patents and meet with lawyers, all while holding a diaper bag, a sippy cup, and a baby on my hip. As I grew my business, I found remarkable support, from CNN, ABC National News and other TV shows, but at the same time, I found remarkable opposition from the most unlikely organizations, the food allergy world.

And I found myself.

Armed with an MBA and a background in research and finance, I unearthed a story that would change my life. Food allergy research had been funded by chemical companies responsible for engineering novel proteins and allergens into our food supply. Proteins designed to increase the profitability of crops. Proteins either banned or labeled in children’s foods around the world. Proteins never before tested for their safety on children. Proteins that appeared to have created the allergy epidemic.

As I continued to unearth this remarkable research, research that mothers in Europe, Japan , Australia and even Russia, already knew, I sat stunned, almost paralyzed. Though with four small children, paralysis was not an option. And in those desperate moments, I heard my call to action. If our government and corporate interests had failed to protect the health of our children, while protecting the profit of the chemical companies, then it would be up to me – up to all of us – to protect the American kids.

And so my crusade began. It has been a remarkable journey. There were days, weeks, even months, when I could hardly take another step forward. Crushed and almost crippled by the research that I continued to unearth. But then there were days, weeks and months when the wind came under my wings, blown in by Erin Brockovich, Nell Newman or Robert F Kennedy and other inspiring individuals who not only believed my story but helped me to move it forward. And with four small children, I had no option by to move forward. Some days they were baby steps. Some days they were leaps of faith. Some days they were steps backward. But as I looked at my children, I continued to move, as they deserved nothing less.

And today, I stand in awe of what we are able to accomplish, as women. There is nothing more powerful than the Mama Instinct of a mother protecting her child. There is nothing more pure than a heart so moved by love that it can accomplish what otherwise might seem impossible. We all have that heart in us. And if you listen to yours, you will hear your call to action.

And if you are inspired to protect the health of your children, the way that mothers around the world are able to protect their little ones, then please consider visiting www.allergykids.com to learn more.

We are the voices for our children, you and I, all of us. Together, we have a remarkable story to tell. I have shared mine, when will you share yours?

According to the New York Times, Robyn O’Brien is “food’s Erin Brockovich”. Robyn is the founder of AllergyKids, an organization she launched on Mothers’ Day 2006 to protect the 1 in 3 American children that now has allergies, ADHD, autism or asthma. She has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America and CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and lives in Boulder , Colorado with her husband and four children. She loves the inspiration found in passionate hearts and invites you to learn more about how to protect your family at www.allergykids.com.

Last Saturday, I put the Empoword concept into action when I competed in the YMCA St. Croix Croixathlon – a sprint triathlon. I woke up to a beautiful cloudless blue sky and thought, “Am I really going to do this?” Despite my best intentions to train long and hard, I simply had not. The end of the school year for my two kids, running a business and the latest rollercoaster ride of the return of my dad’s cancer had not been conducive to long training sessions. But I made a decision to use the Empoword mantra: thought produces outcomes. If I was running our business – Empoword – I better be able to walk my talk.

I knew the concept of mind over body had worked for me in the past in athletics and had been using the Empoword concept for years. I had finished a marathon with two injured Achilles, because I willed myself to do it. Time to see if I could make it work again.

I had self-selected into the “elite” start group – where you put yourself if you thought you would be in the top third. No problem, I thought…until I got to the start at the beach and noticed that I was the oldest one (at 41), didn’t have on the fancy tri-gear and was one of only five women. I said to myself, even if you actually aren’t elite, time to act like it. Something clicked in my head and throughout the wavy swim on the St. Croix River, gulping in the chocolate colored water, I kept saying to myself “focus,” while picturing the Empoword focus cling in my head. I kept telling myself, you can do it and I was.

When doubt crept into my head, “I really should’ve trained more, this is hard, I am going to drown”, I pushed it away with my mantra “power, strength, focus.” I wasn’t the last one out of the water, but close to it.

Up the beach hill path, a brutal steep climb to get to the bikes, I thought I was going to throw up at least a few times. I looked at the “E” that had been sharpied onto my leg, and said to myself “walk the talk” or in this case, get your butt up this hill!

I transitioned to my bike in a very sloppy manner, gasping for breath. It was when I clipped into my bike that everything really clicked. The beautiful Wisconsin rolling hills were comfortable and familiar. I told myself it was time to crank it. Two young women who had started in the 25 and under wave, three minutes behind mine, passed me. That was it. I said, no more! Focus, focus, focus. Power and strength. Breathe, breathe, breathe. The 15 miles flew by. It felt wonderful. The endorphins were kicking in.

Cruising into the transition area, I felt like throwing up again. I stumbled to get my running shoes on and hit the 3-mile trail run. “You can do this in your sleep,” I convinced myself. Running through ravines and around horse poop, a couple young boys passed me, but I keep saying, “see it, think it, be it” over and over again. See the finish line, think power and strength, be the elite athlete.

I finished strong and tired. I went to put my bike on the car and was about to head home when my parents showed up. We decided to go back and watch the awards. When they called the 40-49 age group, I thought maybe, just maybe, I placed third. They called the third and second place winners, then announced first place. It was me. I had done it! I had thought it and it had worked. A sweet purple ironman watch was a nice little prize to boot, my favorite color and all. See it, think it, be it really does work!

Send us your Empoword in Action story and stay empowered!

-Wendy

Turns out this age old proverb is no joke. Medical research is showing us that laughter really does lead to better physical, emotional and mental health. A good laugh can help reduce stress, lower blood pressure, elevate mood, boost immune function, improve brain function, protect the heart and the list goes on. All this from a giggle.

To learn more about the health benefits of laughter, check out these websites:

www.mayoclinic.com

www.helpguide.org

www.about.com

No question laughter feels good, but knowing it is actually good for you makes laughing all the more important. Life is full of demands and challenges and days do go by when we don’t have a good giggle. It sounds funny (Ha!), but we may need to make time to laugh. Our health depends on it.

At least that is what physician Dr. Madan Kataria thinks. Dr. Kataria believes laughter can improve health, increase productivity and maybe even bring about world peace. So he scaled back his medical practice in hopes of triggering an international laughing epidemic. So far, he is off to a pretty good start. Dr. Kataria’s brainchild – Laughter Clubs – numbers in the 5000’s and exists in almost 50 countries.

To learn more about laughter clubs, visit:

www.laughteryoga.org

Or to find a club near you, click:

www.laughteryoga.org

Laughter clubs don’t sound like your kind of thing, try Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D., authors of the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, advise. They believe the foundation of optimal health is maintaining a positive mental attitude. And one way they suggest we do that is to laugh long and often. They recommend these 8 tips to keep us giggling:

1) Learn to laugh at yourself.
2) Inject humor any time it is appropriate.
3) Read the comics to find one that you find funny and follow it.
4) Watch comedies on televisions.
5) Go see a funny movie with a friend.
6) Listen to comedy audiotapes in your car while driving.
7) Play with kids.
8) Ask yourself, “what is funny about this situation?”

Of course we are bias, but number 9 could certainly be wear an Empoword giggle tee shirt. From experience, we can tell you wearing “giggle” brings a smile to the face of everyone you see. No matter what way you choose to bring more laughter and joy into your life, we hope you remember to make time to relax, to smile, to enjoy your friends and family, to be playful and silly, and of course, giggle.

Empoword: A new business that is more than just words!

Stephanie Ross and Wendy Lutter are the women behind Empoword. Their friendship, lives, and the creation of Empoword are testimony to the power of how one right word can manifest change and help realize a goal. Stephanie realized that people need support and help to sustain their journey, as well as inspiration in their “fight”, whatever that may be – cancer like her mother, weight loss, a tough time, or even the ubiquitous need to breathe more and reduce stress. Hence, Empoword was born.

Empoword products are accessible, everyday items - Tshirts, water bottles, mugs, reusable decals. Yet they have a big job. They are designed to support personal growth, transformation and healing. What do you want? Better health, less stress, strength and courage, overall well-being and happiness? Empoword products remind users of their goals, dreams and intentions. Every time the user sees the word on their tee shirt or water bottle, they think it and overtime those thoughts manifest into meaningful outcomes.

“We know our products will empower and inspire our customers to dream big, conquer challenges, and live authentic lives.” – Stephanie and Wendy.

Published June, 2008
Reprinted here with the permission of Twin Cities Naturally

We’d love to hear how you have incorporated Empoword into your life.

What word did you choose and why? What are your goals, intentions, dreams? How did you put the Empoword philosophy - see it, think it, be it - into action? What happened? What kind of results are you seeing? How are you using the products? Which do you find most effective? What advise or ideas can you share?

We look forward to hearing your stories, because they matter and make a difference to all us.

Imagine is Empoword’s word of the month. This month we are imagining long walks, festive picnics, blooming gardens, and time just being lazy, lying in the grass watching the clouds roll by.

Dream big. The sky is the limit. The possibilities are endless.

What are you imagining this month?